


Wellington Wins

by butwordsarewind (sungabraverday)



Series: Cities Headcanons [9]
Category: Paris Burning (thecitysmith)
Genre: Gen, New Zealand, Silent War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-28
Updated: 2013-07-28
Packaged: 2017-12-21 14:31:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,557
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/901382
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sungabraverday/pseuds/butwordsarewind
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Wellington is not the Capital. He wants to be. Unfortunately, cities need to take the fall before that can happen. He's not above pushing the process along.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wellington Wins

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Wellington](https://archiveofourown.org/works/867870) by [butwordsarewind (sungabraverday)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sungabraverday/pseuds/butwordsarewind). 
  * Inspired by [Auckland](https://archiveofourown.org/works/886259) by [butwordsarewind (sungabraverday)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sungabraverday/pseuds/butwordsarewind). 



The year is 1854, and Auckland is the Capital of New Zealand. She is young and beautiful and Maori in her core, and Wellington is none of those things. He is older and gruffer and white, and he's pretty sure he's cleverer. He doesn't want to play second fiddle. He's about to change that.

It's not difficult for things to be set in motion. There was already discontent in the Parliament. He's not the only one who doesn't want to be left out of the meat of things. The South Islanders are complaining about how long it takes to get to Auckland, and his people are too, even though it takes them only a fraction of the time.

She's a sweet thing, so it's easy enough for him to get in to visit his sister. She offers him tea and lunch, and he's amazed at how easy it is for him to drop prepared firestarters of dry wood and grease in strategic locations while he pretends to admire her collections. Her bedroom is right above the kitchen, and he is sure to grease as many things as he subtly can, so it will burn fast and strong.

When it's the middle of the night, Wellington lays his trap. Lines of gunpowder around the edges of the building to make things crackle up fast, and a carefully lit torch thrown in the window sets the place aflame before Wellington disappears into the night.

She is burned and bleeding the next day, and she is in agony, but she says nothing about who's fault it is. And she knows, she knows with a hundred percent certainty, but it isn't the most important thing. The most important thing is healing herself, and making the humans think she doesn't care. If she doesn't care, then they'll strip her of her Capital-hood, and she's already heard rumours of unhappiness with her title. So she'll just be apathetic, and let them do what they will. There are better ways to seek revenge than clutching at power desperately, and Auckland fully intends on pursuing them. But first, she needs to make sure that Wellington isn't going to attack her again.

She writes him a letter, because she is a City and it is what is done. It's short and to the point, almost more of a note.

_Fair play, brother dearest. I know what you're looking for, and I don't want it. You can have it. You just have to make the people come to that conclusion on their own._   
_With love and fire,_   
_Auckland_

Wellington reads the note with a certain degree of satisfaction, and a hint of regret. Perhaps such drastic action hadn't quite been necessary, but they couldn't blame a city for imitating the ancients, and it wasn't like they had had a peaceful society before that, either, in their islands. They were used to violence.

It's two years later, when Auckland still won't look him in the eye, that they're finally seriously trying to decide where the Capital will be. The people talk about a lot of places, but most of them aren't Cities, save him. Just Blenheim, who he knows has no interest in it. And then Nelson, with a sparkle in her eyes, steps forward for consideration.

Their people are indecisive fools, or perhaps they are geniuses, and they call for help. It is a different game, this one, but Wellington knows exactly how to play. The Australian decision-makers are contemptuous to anywhere that doesn't already have a City, and fairly so. Wellington knows this, and is certain to greet them personally when they arrive in his harbour. And he plans to be the only City to do so.

Auckland does anyway, but her burn scars flash at her wrists and neckline. She plays the meek and humble hostess, not the character one wants in a City that will represent the political and diplomatic heart of a country, just in case they hadn't already decided she was too poorly placed to hold the role any longer. But she's playing a role and she's saving her skin, and so she slips in a reference to how Wellington would never be so foolish as to be so injured - this despite the quaking earth that had caused him difficulties just the year prior.

She writes to him telling him what's happening, both before and after, and he makes a note to thank her later. He might even owe her a favour, though that's a currency he's less than thrilled to collect debts in, especially given how she claimed it.

Blenheim has the good wits about him to get out of the City when they come up the South Island coast, hiding in the hills and working in a vineyard. No one goes looking, and that's one more out of the way, and Wellington is relieved that it wasn't even violent.

There's no where else that could be seriously considered, except for Nelson. They say she's the geographic centre of the country, and Wellington is nervous.

So that leaves nothing for it, and a week before she is to be visited by the Australian governors, Wellington boards a boat to visit his rival in person. He crosses the Cook Strait and into her harbour unnoticed.

The night before the guests are due to arrive, Wellington drops by Nelson's house. She's almost the spitting image of Admiral Nelson, with a jaw that looks bizarrely like London's, though her knows that's not how these things work. He can taste his chances of becoming a Capital running away. She is exactly the figure to appeal to their colonial sensibilities, and he's much too unrefined for that. She's also beautiful and young in a way that he is not, and that's probably another point in her favour. And when she sees him considering her, she laughs, bright and pure and clear.

She invites him in, and he accepts. That's a point against her. She didn't learn from Auckland's example.

She's cheerful, but she's cocky too. "Have you come to congratulate me on becoming the new Capital?" she asks, and it grates, because Wellington will never be able to like her, let alone listen to her or take her seriously. She is too buoyant, too sunshine-y, and too high on her own optimism. She's not Capital material. He is. He's the only one who is. And while he could just let their supposedly impartial moderators figure that out for themselves, Wellington isn't prepared to take that risk.

So after dinner, a mostly peaceful affair filled with light conversation from her and gruffer conversation and nods from him, he offers to help clean up. She accepts, of course, and he washes dishes while she puts them away, and it's easy and light. And then Wellington picks up the vegetable knife and pauses.

The moment Nelson is within reach he grabs her wrist and spins her, pulling her close. She squirms, but she's facing away from him, and she's surprised. She doesn't have time to stop the knife that's now pressing into her throat.

"Listen here, sunshine," he whispers menacingly. "You're not Capital material. You'll never be Capital material. Call it a day, sweetheart, because you're nothing but a colonial memory and we deserve more."

The knife bites a little deeper, breaks the skin, and in a flash it's over. Her throat is slit, and blood pours out, covering Nelson and Wellington, the sink, the kitchen, the floor. It's hot and red, and while the wound won't be fatal - not for a City - she's out for the next three days at least, and she's unlikely to talk for longer.

Wellington loosens his grip, and the body and after it the knife fall to the floor. He strips, packages the blood-stained cloth, and goes to find his replacement clothes. It might be rude to kill your host after dinner, but Wellington's done what he came to do and he's quite sure that it'll be enough.

He weighs the bag down with rocks and tosses it off the side of the next boat headed home.

He's comfortably back in Wellington a week later when the governors finally make it to his shores. Exactly as he had planned, he greets them as they walk the gangway. He's the perfect image of a gentleman, and he shows them around, up to the hills, out to the ocean, and through the streets that he calls home. They seem plenty impressed, though the most attention goes to the harbour, which he is happy to provide.

Several days later he wakes up and he can feel the power running through him, new and rich, and he laughs. He reaches the temporary legislative home as they read out the sentence "the Commissioners have arrived at the unanimous conclusion that Wellington, in Port Nicholson, is the site upon the shores of Cook’s Straits which presents the greatest advantages for the administration of the Government of the Colony." It's not a pretty sentence, but it's everything he needs. It's official; he's done it.

He sets out to work the next day, turning his streets into what he knows they were meant to be, and if the city feels brighter and more alive than usual... well, who's to know what it cost? The Silent Wars stay silent, and Wellington wins.

**Author's Note:**

> Wellington is my Machiavellian prince and I love him; please do not take this as evidence to the contrary. He's not only a bloodthirsty power-hungry so-and-so. He's artsy and a romantic too. Really. [I wrote about that part first.](http://archiveofourown.org/works/867870) He'd like you to remember him that way please. 
> 
> Please also do not take this as anything but love for Auckland, because she's smart and lovely, and... Nelson may not be the brightest bulb on the tree, but I like her well enough too.


End file.
